Day 8: So, how did the run above 15k go?

Hey folks, how is it going? Only a few days remain for the upcoming half-marathon. As mentioned in the previous post, I had planned for a run of at least 15k on Friday. ‘I got no choice’ were my words. Well guess what, it didn’t happen.

Call it Diwali hangover or whatever; I just couldn’t make myself head out of the door on either Friday or Saturday. I mean, I woke up on time and could have gone out but for some reason didn’t. It’s not as if I don’t have a goal or motivation; I am to run a half-marathon this Sunday and a marathon on 20 January, 2019. I have already registered for both the events and my participation in them has been confirmed. Training for these two events should be motivation enough for me.

Anyway, but on Sunday I was ready to head out. Got up early morning, changed into my gear and headed out for my run.

As I finished my warmup exercises I tried to fire-up Runkeeper to track my running activity. Today for some reason it didn’t get a good GPS signal. I walked a couple of minutes with the hope that the signal issue will be fixed, but after even 10 minutes that had not resolved.

I decided to start my run without the signal, figured that Runkeeper will track my activity for the point where the GPS signal issue gets resolved. Having already spent 10 odd minutes with the GPS, now I was facing trouble with the waist belt that I used for holding my bottle of water. The waist belt was not tight enough and I had to spend some more time on that.

As I started my run, I felt that these things caused me some frustration and that showed in the way I was running. I deliberately slowed myself down and tried to get a good rhythm going and then gradually picked up the pace. With onset of winter the temperature at that early hour was very pleasant, unlike what I experienced during my last run. Running in this weather was extremely enjoyable.

As I completed 10k, I began feeling irritation around my nipples. I had forgotten to apply Vaseline on them and now was facing an issue with their chafing. I continued running for some more time but then decided to stop running and walk instead. I stopped my Runkeeper when I stopped running; it was showing I covered 11.7km. But I could see that according the route that Runkeeper recorded, the GPS signal issues meant the first km of my run didn’t get recorded. So I had actually completed about 12.75km of running and then, another 3.5km walking. This 3.5km was not tracked through Runkeeper so doesn’t show up on the picture below.

Now I could have pushed through and ran the entire distance, but felt with the half-marathon next Sunday it is better to preserve my body. So even if I didn’t run for 15k, I am taking solace from the fact that I at least covered a distance of 15k even if the last few kilometers were completed walking.

I may head out for a short run midweek and then rest myself for the HM on Sunday.